Time Capsule as Music Server AND a Backup?

[2A Batterie]

I'm setting up Time Capsule for my parents who are using a PowerBook G4 running 10.4. They are running out of HD room on their computer, mainly due to my Father's music collection. What he'd like to do is backup all of his iTunes to DVD, while having the whole library accessible on the TC so that it is not needed on the laptop. By doing this, will he still be able to stream music to his home stereo through Airport Express?

Also, there shouldn't be a problem having one folder for music and one for backup (I realize that Time Machine only works with 10.5 and higher)?

 

[Chad H]

I tried and it worked. Its just not stable at all.

 

[2A Batterie]

I tried and it worked. Its just not stable at all.

Unstable in what regards? Are you constantly having to reset it? Does it drop wireless signal alot?

 

[Icaras]

Hey batterie, thats exactly what i bought TC for. On top of the standard backup, I wanted to be able to stream music from any machine in my house off the TC, and I've tried it and it works fine to me. I'm not sure what he was saying about it being unstable either, but I'm able to load mp3s off of the TC just fine. Well thats judging from my experience at least. It should be noted that all my machines are all in close proximity to the TC (in different rooms, but on the same floor). Hope this helps.

 

[Keleko]

I use Time Machine to back up my MBP for everything but iTunes. For iTunes I use iBackup and have it copy the files to a separate directory on my Time Capsule. That allows me to listen to the music from the TC on my Windows work laptop when I'm in my home office. It works just fine to do that. I wouldn't recommend using iTunes to manage the library on the TC, though. I've heard it doesn't work too well that way. That's why I use iTunes and store the music locally on the MBP and just copy it to the TC.

 

[2A Batterie]

The music collection is small enough to back up on dvds (about 10) but too large to keep on the laptop's HD. This is why I want to have the iTuneslibrary accessible from the TC- so that music can be streamed and also can be burnt to a disc if needed from the laptop, while not taking up any space. The backup in case of TC failing would be the DVD's. I'd also being using TC as a backup to the laptop's HD.

 

[gwsat]

I use Time Machine to back up my MBP for everything but iTunes. For iTunes I use iBackup and have it copy the files to a separate directory on my Time Capsule. That allows me to listen to the music from the TC on my Windows work laptop when I'm in my home office. It works just fine to do that. I wouldn't recommend using iTunes to manage the library on the TC, though. I've heard it doesn't work too well that way. That's why I use iTunes and store the music locally on the MBP and just copy it to the TC.

That’s a good suggestion. I ordered a Time Capsule yesterday, after I saw that my 250 gig FireWire was more than 95% full, so I’ll try that.

The beauty of keeping iTunes on your computer is that you can create alias files of the music and movie files that are on an external drive and place them in iTunes on your computer. The alias files are tiny so they take up virtually none of your computer’s disk space. For example, the size of the iTunes library on my computer is only about 140 kb but the movie files the alias files there represent take up more than 75 GB on the FireWire drive.

 

[chapmac]

Gents,

Very interested in the setups that you have suggested - I too am in the same boat with a small HD on my G4 Imac and was thinking of TC as a backup + music server. How would this work with syncing music on to my ipod and iphone if my music was physically stored on the TC? Does the 'alias' solution mean that the music would atuomatically get synced over???